The order war, p.36
The Order War, page 36
“Unless fathers do,” Justen added. “My father has always been the cook. Gunnar took after him in that respect. I can do a little.”
“Gunnar?” asked Frysa.
“My older brother. He’s an Air Wizard.”
“He still seeks you,” murmured Dayala. “That is what one of the ancients told me.”
Justen swallowed. Gunnar, still searching?
“He knows you are well.”
“He’s probably worried, though.”
“It must be nice to have a brother.”
“I have a younger sister, too. Her name is Elisabet. She’s a Weather Wizard also, or she will be.”
“We have few children here,” Frysa answered slowly. “Not all stay, but the great forest can support only so many.”
Justen nodded. People would have to exist in the order-chaos Balance as well. “Are there too many people in other lands?”
Frysa and Dayala looked at each other, then back at Justen.
Finally, Frysa spoke. “There is always a Balance. Here, we know that Balance, but we would not be so foolish as to declare what that Balance might be elsewhere.” Her eyes flicked toward the iron trilia that sat on the side table. “I could not come close to such artistry. Nor could most Naclans. So how should we presume?”
Justen sipped just enough beer to wet his throat. “So you suspect that there are too many people in at least some places, but you believe it is up to those who live in such places to reach their own decisions—or to fight with the Balance on their own?”
“One can scarcely fight the Balance.” Dayala’s lips quirked after she responded.
“I understand. They must reach their own terms with the Balance, but if they fail to do so…” He shrugged, then pursed his lips. “Is that why I am here? To allow an outsider a chance to right the mess beyond Naclos?”
“You were bound to try, whether we helped or not. You are a Shaper,” said Frysa flatly.
“You try to help those who are going to try, and you always have, haven’t you?”
“When we could. Many have refused our knowledge.”
Dayala took a small swallow from her mug and watched the conversation between her mother and Justen.
Justen took another deep breath. “We met this singer—Werlynn. You helped him?”
“No. He went out to help you with his songs and his son. It was very hard on him, and he still is not…quite reconciled…”
“His son?”
“He had a daughter who was killed when quite young, and his son was blind for most of his life. They both died young…young for druids, anyway.” Frysa smiled sadly. “He blames himself.” She pushed back her chair. “I must go. Tomorrow I am going downriver to Diehl, and I will need to be alert for the river currents.”
Justen and Dayala stood as Frysa did and walked with her toward the front archway, where Dayala drew back the hangings to let her mother pass into the soft, late-summer night.
A faint chirping and the croak of a frog echoed in the darkness as the older silver-haired woman, her hair almost glowing in the purple darkness, slipped away toward the center of Rybatta.
Dayala closed the hangings.
After returning to the table, Justen looked down at the uneaten berry bread. “It smells so good, but I just couldn’t. I’ll have some in the morning.”
“You understand your body best.”
“I suppose.” Justen paused, then swallowed. “I’m almost afraid to ask.” He paused again before speaking. “I’ve met your mother twice now, but…”
“My father?”
Justen nodded, his heart dropping.
Instead, Dayala laughed. “I should have told you. I’m sorry. You’ve already met him. But I didn’t want…” She shook her head. “Some things are different here.”
Justen’s thoughts whirled. What man reminded him of Dayala? Where? Then he nodded and asked slowly, “Yual?”
“Of course. That is why…” I can bear the flame…
“But…why don’t they live together?”
“Sometimes they do. But Yual likes the more open spaces, and sometimes he travels the Empty Lands, or the grasslands. He went to Sarronnyn several times before I was born.”
“And your mother is more tied to the great forest. Yual told me that, except that he didn’t say it was your mother—just that it was his daughter’s mother.” Justen shook his head. “You all think I see more than I do. And I still don’t have the answers I feel I need.”
“I could take you to see Syodra. She has a talent with the sands, and that was how I found you.” Dayala squeezed his fingers. “It would be easier…”
“Easier?”
“The sands at the edge of the Stone Hills are sometimes clearer, but,” Dayala shrugged, “they are not always…cooperative. For what you seek, the forest sands could help.”
“Anything would help, I think.” Justen squeezed her fingers, his breath somehow constricted by her closeness and his desire. “Is this nut ripe yet?”
He could feel the sadness in her.
“No…not yet.”
“What does it take to ripen it?” He tried to keep his tone light, knowing that he was scarcely deceiving her.
“A trial. Your trial.”
He nodded, not exactly surprised. How could she dare to love fully someone who could not stand up to the great forest on his own?
“It’s not that. You have to understand—to feel—before you are ready.”
He understood all too well. Dayala, like it or not, loved him, and she did not want to push him before he was ready. But if he waited, would he ever be ready? It was already late summer, almost fall, and the cold winds would be blowing across the Gulf and chilling Recluce before long, while the first snows had already begun to fall on the Westhorns.
“Could we see Syodra soon?”
“Tomorrow.”
LXXXV
“Syodra, this is Justen. Can you help him?”
The older druid had silver hair longer than Dayala’s, but the same green eyes, although her tunic and trousers were of a silvered brown. She stood beside a raised bed of sand that was enclosed within the roots of a lorken tree.
“I can show him what the sands say. He will have to find his own meanings.” Syodra smiled politely and inclined her head.
“I will leave you two. The sands work better without confusion.” Dayala touched Justen’s hand and started down the path.
“What are your questions? Think deeply about them as you ask.” Syodra dipped her hands into the colorless sands held by the lorken roots.
“People call me a Shaper. All I want to do is to stop the spread of unbalanced chaos that is Fairhaven. How am I going to do that?”
The sands quivered and colored, and Justen watched as there appeared an image of darkness spreading across a white tower, blotting it out. Then the sands churned and the space turned a brilliant white.
“Darkness covering Fairhaven, replaced by light. What does that mean?”
Syodra remained silent, and Justen nodded to himself. “My meanings, I know.”
He wet his lips, then asked, “I’m supposed to be myself in order to succeed in this trial. How can I be that?”
The second image was clearer, that of Justen clasping a bloody sword and a skeleton to himself and bowing his head.
“That seems rather far-fetched, but there must be a truth there…somehow,” Justen said wearily. “What would you show me?”
Syodra inclined her head and glanced toward the colored sands, which boiled on the table, then came to rest with an image of a red-haired woman dressed in black. Beside the picture was a flag bearing a crossed rose and blade.
“Are you saying that you’re responsible somehow for Megaera becoming a founder of Recluce?”
The sands churned again, less violently, and the image of two broken black bracelets replaced the image of the banner.
Justen shook his head. “I don’t understand that one. I suppose it really doesn’t matter. I’ll either understand it or…” He shrugged. “Why is it that I can’t quite grasp things?”
The sands boiled again, and a single pillar of black appeared, separated by a low wall from a pillar of white. A chain of green led from the white pillar to the black, except that the links from each pillar ended in a sundered link lying on the smooth stones of the wall.
“Anything else?” The image of his clasping the bloody sword and the skeleton echoed in his thoughts, and he shivered.
“No. You have seen enough.” The silver-haired woman smiled sadly, then pointed toward the pathway.
Justen inclined his head, bowed slightly, and backed up several steps. He turned and eased past the huge black oak. In the root that had been grown into the shape of a bench, overlooking the natural pond, sat Dayala.
“Did you find what you wished?”
At the combination of huskiness and music in the druid’s voice, Justen sighed and slowly sank onto the seat beside her. “Not exactly. It’s like everything else I find in Naclos. Everyone is so helpful, but half the time I don’t understand the answers, at least not until later.”
Instead of looking at her, Justen idly reached for a long stem of grass. He shivered again at the image of the sword and skeleton.
Dayala’s hand touched his.
“Sorry,” he apologized. “I forget.”
“If you had real need of it,” she began.
“I know. I’m nervous. I keep thinking that if I knew more …but I never will. Not that much more. Can you tell me any more about the trial?”
Dayala shrugged nervously. “You know more than most. You almost went through the trial the first time you met the great forest. That makes it both harder and easier. You know more, and you have more reason to fear. And you should not fear. You are strong enough, if you trust in yourself.”
“So when do I undertake this trial?”
“Whenever you wish. We will have to go back to Merthe.”
“Can we start tomorrow?”
Dayala nodded.
LXXXVI
Justen sat on the edge of one of the narrow beds, looking across the darkness to Dayala, who unfolded the thin blanket provided by the guest house.
Somewhere he could hear Duvalla singing softly, and the warm odor of fresh-baked bread wafted through the half-open window. A few voices, only a few, for even the center of Merthe was far quieter than the edge of Rybatta, drifted to his ears, but he could not make out the words.
“There have to be some rules for this.” Justen’s voice bore an exasperated tone. “Otherwise, I could just go up on the overlook and say ‘Hullo, great forest’ and walk away.”
“If the great forest accepted the trial, it would not be that simple. And if it did not, then it would not be a trial. But there are rules. You must enter the great forest on the path that leads downhill from the black rocks. You must always stay on that path until you reach the end, or until you can go no farther, and then you must return by the path to the road to Merthe.” Dayala took a deep breath, then added, “I am bidden to tell you one other choice.”
“Bidden?”
“You must choose between the safe and the glorious. Those are the only choices open to you.”
“The safe and the glorious? What does that mean?”
Dayala looked at the floor.
Finally, Justen spoke again. “When is the trial over?”
“When you set foot on the road to Merthe.”
“Proof of the will and the way, I guess.” Justen nodded, then frowned, shifting his weight on the narrow sleeping pallet. “Dayala, you make it sound so simple, but nothing is that simple.”
“Simple does not mean easy. It is simple to walk across the Stone Hills to Naclos, but was it easy?”
“Why me? Why did you risk your life to get me? Why did you risk it again when I got tangled in the great forest?”
She looked down and did not speak.
Justen waited, sitting on the pallet, drumming his finger on the wooden frame.
“Justen, you see and you do not see. Would I tie my life to yours and then unnecessarily endanger you?” …do love you…
Justen saw tears in her eyes, and he could feel the combined sadness and frustration they represented. His own eyes burned. “But why? Why did you tie us together?” He could barely choke out the words. “You didn’t have to…to rescue me.”
“Because you are a Shaper. What you…learn if you survive the trial, will let you…change the world…and no Shaper, the Angels decreed…can go unfettered.” Her words were more sobs than coherent phrases by the last syllable.
A cold chill settled over Justen, colder than the winds off the Northern Ocean.
LXXXVII
Justen walked alone, wearing brown trousers, brown shirt, and his old black boots. He and Dayala had walked from Rybatta back through Viela to Merthe, where she waited. Now he walked toward the edge of the great forest, toward the overlook, trying not to think too much of what awaited him there above the great forest. Trying not to think of the druid who had held him like a lover, but who was not a lover, not yet. Trying not to think too deeply.
And he had once thought of Naclos as almost a park, where trees and animals and druids lived in peaceful harmony!
He stopped where the path split, one fork heading out into the grasslands, the other uphill through the low brush to the overlook. Then he turned and started uphill, wondering how many others had made the same choice and how many had headed into the grasslands as wanderers, forever exiled from the land of their birth.
Just before the hillcrest, in the clearing where they had spent that night more than who knew how many eight-days before, he took a last look toward the grasslands—out toward the Stone Hills, where everything had seemed so simple. Then he climbed the last few cubits and looked down on the forest.
There are two ways…the safe and the glorious…the safe and the glorious…the safe and the glorious.
Justen swallowed, then shook his head. Darkness damned if he would creep. Not for the Whites of Fairhaven or for the intertwined order and chaos of the great forest of Naclos.
The sun touched the western horizon, and Justen took another deep breath. He’d taken too many breaths, and not enough thought.
He frowned. The form of the trial was his, so long as he came to terms with the forest, so long as he walked the forest in full order and in body.
But there was no stipulation on how he accomplished that challenge. He grinned and pursed his lips, bracing his back against the smooth, dark stones, dark with order…and with blood.
He shook his head nervously, then looked across the great forest and into the golden dust of twilight.
He broadcast his challenge to the great forest.
I am! Here I am!
No…oh, be careful, Justen…
Even from afar, he could feel the clear, thin thoughts from Dayala, and he barely had time to push a vague sense of reassurance back toward her before the first lash of white spiked out of the twilight toward him.
He imagined himself as a stolid black iron anvil, a basic force of order, and the lash shattered on him, white blobs of chaos burning in the air around him…burning, yet not burning.
Before that first lash had shattered against his presence, two other, thinner, webs—one of white and one of black—circled around him, spinning tighter as if to crush the basic order within him. His breathing became labored, shallow.
Justen let himself become iron, white-hot iron just below the point of burning, radiating heat…
The twin spirals began to radiate heat back at him. Without moving his mouth, Justen grinned and let his iron core accept their heat, take it all, just as heat-greedy iron would always take that heat. Making that heat his, he took the first step down the path. The two pulses shriveled under his iron will, hard like the hands of the sometime-smith he was, even before he reached the lower bushes at the edge of the great forest.
I am Justen! I am me!
Crack…
A heavy branch thundered through the canopy above him, dropping almost at his feet and blocking the path.
Justen paused, then released the heat he had received from the second attack. The bark of the fallen branch smoldered, then flared, and he burned through the heavy wood as a blade would cut through a stick of cheese.
He set his left foot inside the forest, and his right. Sweat poured from his forehead, and dark shadows rose in the light he cast.
Cracckkk…
Justen burned away the second trunk-sized limb before it reached him, and stepped deeper into the green gloom.
With each cubit, the path grew fainter, harder to discern, as if it were fading away with each step, but Justen put one foot, and then another on that disappearing path.
Another burst of power flared in the depths of the forest, and an enormous forest cat charged toward Justen, who flinched. The cat’s teeth—each tooth larger than a belt knife—glinted like silver blades, and the extended claws dripped blood.
Justen concentrated on bending light, on bending force around himself, and the cat vanished.
A figure in dark gray stepped forward out of the shadows, holding a short shaft. Justen slowed, but the soldier with the shadowed face carried no blade, no shield, only the short length of oak barely a finger’s thickness.
The soulless eyes of the Iron Guard looked through Justen as she extended the order-tipped arrow. You are of chaos, as surely as I am…for death is chaos, and you have created death, not just by your own hand, but by the hands of hundreds…
He shivered, then looked through the figure with his order-senses, but only the tiniest pulses of energy appeared behind the image.
Take it…it is yours, great Master of Chaos.
Master of Chaos? Never! He put up a hand as if to push the arrow away, knowing that the image had to be some gambit of the great forest’s.
Take it…
The Iron Guard hurled the arrow at his outstretched hand, and fire shot through his left arm as if a knife point had ripped open his arm from wrist to shoulder.
It is yours, Master of Chaos, returned to you…
